A Dime For A Beggar

It's August 14th.  Mom's birthday.  I'm partying with my new best friend, Jim.  It's Jim's birthday too.  Mom will be here for her visit tomorrow and I can't wait to tell her of the birthday connection.  So I pick her up at the airport and we head out to look for Jim's bus.  We're almost there when I see a hippie waving wildly.  I stop the van and see that it's my old friend, Ground Score Mark, from Frisco.  Mark is very hospitable and I thought what a great welcome for Mom.  Just then Jim and his girlfriend came walking up and we were having a great impromptu pow-wow on the sidewalk there.  I was ecstatic, there was nothing more I could have asked for at that moment.

 

A homeless guy walked around our little party but before he totally let the

opportunity go by, I heard him say "spare any change?"   Now, what went

through my head right then is hard to say, so I'll just say that I couldn't be

bothered and I was right back to my joyous occasion and that day remained

one of my happiest memories ......for about a year.

 

 I was thinking about my joyous memory and I was so

happy reliving it ......till I heard:  "spare any change?"

 

Time stopped.  I was stuck in that moment.  I had seen myself as the luckiest

person on earth and I was right.  God, family and friends were all on my side

and I couldn't have planned a happier moment for myself.  It was handed to

me on a silver platter.....but when I let my homeless brother walk away empty

handed I became unworthy and I could see myself as the ungrateful person

I really was.  I wanted to fall on my knees and beg for mercy, knowing full

well that I had shown none.  After what seemed like hours in hell, I wrote

this poem:

 

          I didn't give a dime to a beggar

          Now, I'm about to go insane

          There's really no excuse for that

          It cannot 'simply' be explained

 

          God has done a lot for me

          Through friends and family to be sure

          You'd think I'd want to pay him back

          And give a few bucks to the poor

 

          A fool just let that chance go by

          And it shakes me to the core.